Does it irk you to not be able to understand/pronounce an obscure user-name?

No.

Thanks.

I just mentally assign them a name that is close but memorable.

I’m assuming nobody can pronounce my username correctly.

It bothers me more when I know a user’s avatar but can’t for the life of me remember their username.

@dverhey, I just always took it to be the family name Verhey (which I’d pronounce verHAY) with the initial D in front of it. So whether I’m right or wrong, I’m not having any trouble pronouncing it. Unlike, say, Rachienz or cheebdragon or Buttonstc (is it Buttons – TC or Button – STC? or neither?).

@zen, to answer your question: not a lot, but a little. I never have to say them aloud, not ever, but there are a few that bother me a bit just because I don’t know how to hear them in my head. (Wow, I just found out I can’t type in your username, or copy and paste it, because the interface automatically interprets the underscores as code for italics.)

Like @Dog I usually give them some alternative name. Then, long after I’ve learned the correct way to pronounce it, I still “hear” it the wrong way. In my head, buttonstc is “buttonsack”. I’m sure that’s not right, but what can I do? My brain is weird. A lot of people get mine wrong, too.

I’m sure no one can pronounce mine, so who am I to judge?

@cprevite, I think of it as constructed just like dverhey, and the only thing I don’t know is whether your family pronounces the final E as an anglicized syllable or drops it. In my head I give it an anglicized Italian treatment such as I was accustomed to in the Northeast, but around here some similar names are anglicized all the way, the E silent and the preceding vowel long.

I make up my own pronunciations, that are usually way off.

@dverhey I pronounce yours /dvεrhi/ and @cprevite I pronounce yours /si’prəvait/

I’m sure I have all kinds of made-up pronunciations for people’s names that aren’t obvious how to pronounce. :P

@Jeruba: It’s the latter: Dropped ‘e’, long ‘t’.

For the longest time I thought “Tall Jasper man” Had something to do with Tallia having male gametes. I need stronger glasses.

So you guys know what I mean!!!

Oh yeah, all the time. I just decide on my mental pronunciation and rarely give it another thought. So we have Buttontastic and CopperVite (which sounds like some nutritional supplement) and that’s that.

@Jeruba: How about button stitch, which is a sewing technique?

@Jeruba Has it right. It’s just last name + first initial. I’ve thought about trying to change it to DeanV or some novelty name, but bigger fish to fry, I guess.

These are my pronunciations for the ones on this thread that I feel may be wrong:
@everephebe ever feeb
@augustlan august lann
@cprevite see prehv vite (rhymes with right)
@dverhey dee verr (rhymes with fur) hay
@Jeruba jurr oo buh

Well let me clear mine up. It’s my first name and middle and last initials. My clown name, that is.

Just think of the old joke: Whats Smokey the Bear’s middle name?

Likewise for mine:
Buttons T. C.
Buttons T.(he) C.(lown)

I had to add the two initials since “Buttons” as a screen name was already taken on many of the sites for which I tried to register and that was over 10 yrs. ago. Can you imagine what it’s like now?

And forget about YouTube and Ebay. I had to use a variant since Buttonstc was already taken there.

Trying to come up with a unique screen name really is not that easy nowadays and using a different name at each site is just way too confusing.

I’m sure I’m not the only one to have faced this dilemma when first encountering the Internet, am I ?

BTW

One of the ones which puzzled me the most was @blueiiznh.

Then I figured out it’s most likely someone from New Hampshire who has blue eyes.
If not, then I have absolutely no idea :)

And for the longest time I was under the impression that Auggie’s name was an ancient Roman Emperor named Augustian. Then one day, I realized that it was an “L” rather than an “i”.

I find that in many instances, the number “1” as well as the letters “L” and capital “i” can get confused one for another all the time.

So, why doesn’t @blueiiznh
appear in red as it should ?

@dxs add a strong E in the middle and your good. :D

What a fun question! I didn’t have a conscious thought about it until you asked, but upon reflection I tend to do here what I do when reading fiction—I make up my own pronunciation or shorten the name to the part that makes sense to me (e.g., for @Buttonstc it was just Buttons and I dropped the rest of it). I too initially misread Auggie’s name as Augustian (the “L” vs “I” thing was beyond my visual acuity). 6rant6 is Grant in my head and I too got Tall Jasper Man converted to Tallia J. Sperman. I had @Dog deciphered correctly (I hope).

I am sure that most folks think my screen name is Kayak-8 but it is Kayak Kate. Which makes me pause when Fluther users think I am a guy . . . oh well.

@Buttonstc, thanks for solving that longtime mystery!

So, why doesn’t @blueiiznh appear in red as it should ?
Because that happens only when the user has already posted on the thread. It creates a link to the user’s last post. None here for that user.

@dxs, you can’t really get mine wrong because it’s a made-up name in the first place. I say it sort of like a cut-and-paste of syllables from Jerry and Aruba. Accent on the second syllable.

And speaking of unpronounceable—yours is most nearly like a sneeze . . .

@Buttonstc That makes sense, but you’re still Button-tastic to me

@Jeruba They are my initials—D, X, S not “dixis” haha

@dxs Then I would guess that you are Catholic . . .

@Kayak8 why do you say that?

The “X” my friend, the “X.”

What does the “X” have to do with suspecting me of catholicism?

Either “X” is a stand-in for the absence of an initial or “X” really is the initial. There are a limited number of names that start with “X” so I could narrow it down to you are Greek or Catholic. I could also guess that you have very creative parents which throws out the other two.

I’m one of em visual people, so any username that’s all weird and seemingly unpronounceable, I make it into a mental drawing in my head, which is stored there and associates with the name when I see it again, or the user when I’m thinking about them. I mostly do this with normal usernames too. Hell that’s the only way I get through mathematics. XD
I started doing this years ago when I hung around on Final Fantasy forums and was sick and tired of trying to memorize usernames like ’‘cloudSephirothBoner22bond666’’

But nah it doesn’t bother me lol.

I have a hard time pronouncing certain things and reading in English is one of the harder things for me, so I make up a lot of silly names for people so I can remember them.

The best is YARNLADY who writes it in all screaming caps because otherwise it’d look like Yam lady, observe: yarnlady.

Oh, and while you’re all solving username riddles and enjoying yourselves immensely with my 1250th question – where’s the lurve? Show me the lurve.

But you’re the one who usually squanders the lurve by bugging out to a different SN immediately prior to reaching 10K (or any other K for that matter).

Now is that the way for any kind of self-respecting lurve whore to be acting ?

You beg for it and then toss it carelessly by the wayside once accumulated.

But we lurve you anyhow, you great big bundle of contradictions :D

<<< Is a lurvewhore. I admit it.

Hello. My name’s zen. And I am a lurve whore. And it’s not just the principle of the matter. I am a whore who loves the lurve.

It irks me that most English-speaking people can’t pronounce my real name. It’s like if you add an “o” at the end of what would be a regular English name, it becomes impossible to pronounce. Ugh.

There’s (or at least there used to be) a ride in Universal Studios, where they ask for your name at the entrance, so that at the end ET waves bye and says your name. That motherfucking alien butchered my name :(

@Kayak8 I know someone whose middle name is Xochitl (she pronounces it Sow sheel). That’s náhuatl (an aztec language MD Mexico). The “X” could mean anything, and not necessarily Catholic or Greek in anyway. Some people just like names, too.